I refuse to let DC reboot their way out of a warped timeline. No explaining it away, lean into it.
Tim drake is a 90s kid. He is seventeen, he grew up alongside computers and listens to terrible rock rap. Jason, one year older than him, is from the 80s and the height of the AIDs epidemic. Dick, maybe six years older than Jason, is from the 40s. Babs, five years older than dick, is from the 50s. The year is 2025. Bruce Wayne has just turned 40.
Headcannon that due to diligently monitoring the Wayne family’s media image, Alfred is chronically online, and as such, is constantly dropping slang into conversation like-
(Over the coms)
Batman: Alfred, what’s the update on the Arkham situation?
Alfred: *Ahem* Unfortunately sir, it is as they say- ‘we’re cooked’
Collective groans from Tim, Dick, and Jason over the coms
Batman: …Huh?
Jason: *muttering* I knew I should’ve stayed outa this one…
Damian: I don’t understand, what are we cooking?
Alfred: It’s giving ‘failure era’, sir-
Dick: Damn it!
Tim: We really are cooked
Damian: What does that -?
Alfred: It’s lowkey not-
Batman: In English Alfred. Please.
Alfred: *Sigh* My apologies, sir. The Joker has escaped.
*looks at books* too tired for you *looks at films* too tired for you *looks at art supplies* too tired for you *eyes fall on tumblr* oho ho
Rebel Rex 🫡
terrible news: the only way to find out if something you create is gonna be good or bad is to actually create it
when in doubt, use your sibling as a blunt object
Jason: It’s your spleen! You lost an ORGAN Tim, you should have told us!
Tim: So? You don’t have your tonsils, that’s an organ!
Dick: That’s not the same and you kn-
Jason: Jokes on you, my tonsils grew back in the Lazarus Pit so your argument doesn’t even make sense!
Dick, now fully turned toward Jason: Your tonsils did WHAT
Fic rec with some lovely art! Come to the dark side (we have glowing eyes and cool powers)
Idk I’m a sucker for glowing eyes
Might do more
I didn't need my heart anyway
Robin!Jason, who constantly references different books at random times by quoting them and joking about characters, except Bruce doesn't have much time to read everything that Jason goes through. Of course, he understands some nods towards classics, but Jason is an avid reader, so it is hard to keep up with him sometimes. Jason tries to drag him to watch some movie adaptations, but he falls asleep in the very beginning of it.
And then Jason dies.
Bruce goes through all his library obsessively to the point he remembers the page of every little bookmark Jason left, and he knows his little notes on the margins by the heart. He watches movie adaptations, too, even though Jason only ever watched it to hate on them. He finds new books, books he thinks Jason would like if he was alive, and reads them, imagining what kind of analysis would Jason finalise by the end of it; his opinion not always matches with Jason's, but that doesn't matter. Bruce just likes to imagine.
Years pass, and Jason returns to Gotham. Not as a boy Bruce missed so much. Or, at least, he thinks so.
But then Jason does some bitter, irritated reference, comparing them to characters of one of the books he had on his shelf, and Bruce catches himself thinking... well, they still think similarly, but the conclusion they drew had always differed from each other. It is a different situation, of course, but... but maybe he could try to make this work.
Because, if anything, Bruce is tired of imagining. Especially, not when he finally has a chance to get everything back.
On the next day after their fight, someone sends Jason a copy of a new book from his favourite author - the one that he still hadn't read - his old set of colourful bookmarks, and a little note.
Let me know what you think.
Bruce gets the book back in a week, full of frantic notes, a bunch of bookmarks, and a short note explaining what each colour means (a mystery he didn't resolve years ago, after he passed away).
And, oh, God. He completely forgot how fast Jason read sometimes.
"i asked chat gpt" well i asked the muse to sing it to me